


get cool: an instructional guide by lee minho

by malbokdiet



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Humor, Halloween, M/M, Pining, Tsundere Lee Minho | Lee Know, changbin is a token heterosexual, too much music major slander
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29165040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malbokdiet/pseuds/malbokdiet
Summary: Here’s the cliff notes:Step 1: Carefully observe everything that Minho does when he’s around Chan.Step 2: Do the exact opposite.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 34
Kudos: 132
Collections: SKZ Seasons of Love





	get cool: an instructional guide by lee minho

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SKZ_Seasons_of_Love](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SKZ_Seasons_of_Love) collection. 



> ☾ thanks to op for a lovely prompt, and thanks to the mods for running this fest! be sure to check out the other fics in the collection :)
> 
> ☾ a mild warning for minho's potty mouth and the occasional references to sex, but that should be it.

☾

For as long as Minho's had the pleasure of knowing himself, he's been cool.

This isn't just Minho tooting his own horn—though, that's not something he'd do in the first place. Overly sincere metaphors involving band instruments are _emphatically_ uncool. Minho just happens to be, objectively, the coolest person that he knows. Really, truly, and honestly. Minho is so cool, he puts cucumbers to shame. He’s so freakin' cool that he summers in Antarctica. Yeah, no biggie, just catch him chilling _(ha)_ with his polar bear homies. Matter of fact, Minho is so cool that he's going to stop talking about how cool he is before he crosses the line from ironic egotism to a certifiably uncool lack of self-awareness.

With how incredibly cool Minho is, one would assume that he hangs out with like-minded individuals—namely, people who score so high on the Cool Spectrum that they break the motherfucking scale. It's a fair assumption. Minho once assumed the same.

And yet, here he is. Best friends with Seo Changbin.

See, Changbin has all the right moving parts to be cool: he’s got a great sense of fashion, not to mention the wit of a heterosexual Oscar Wilde. He's also one of the only people on campus who can beat Minho in DDR. (Seriously, Minho swears Changbin enters a fugue state when he steps on the dance pad.) If such an impossibility didn't tear a hole in the fabric of the universe, Changbin could've even been as cool as Minho.

Unfortunately, Changbin possesses _zero_ fucking chill.

"You invited Chan?” hisses Minho. “That is not cool, dude.”

Changbin frowns. “I thought you liked Chan?”

Minho feels his face flush warm with embarrassment. “I don’t _like_ Chan. I mean, I like Chan—but I don’t _like_ like him,” he rambles.

Changbin stares at him. “I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and ignore whatever hormone-addled sixth grader just possessed you,” he says, “because my point still stands.”

“Why couldn’t you have given me a heads up?” Minho asks, nearly whining. “I mean, I look terrible right now. Chan is about to walk through that door and ask me, one of the zombie extras from _The Walking Dead,_ for my autograph.”

Changbin furrows his brow. “Why would he ask an extra for an autograph?”

Minho groans and buries his face in his hands. “It’s over. He’ll never look at me the same way again.”

“Hey,” Changbin says before putting his hands on Minho’s shoulders. “I say this in the most heterosexual way possible—but you, Lee Minho, always look like a hot piece of ass. Today is no different.”

This is another reason why Changbin is categorically uncool: he possesses sincerity in spades. Minho, on the other hand, is pretty sure that whatever gland produces genuine compliments in him was excised like a tumor long ago. And thank God for that.

“Y’know,” Minho says flatly, “I haven’t showered in three days.”

Changbin quickly removes his hands from Minho’s shoulders. He tries (and fails) to surreptitiously wipe his palms against the front of his hoodie.

“Okay, so you’ve… looked better,” Changbin admits, “but you know Chan won’t say anything about it.”

Ugh. He’s right. Chan, too, is disgustingly earnest. The only difference is, when Changbin says something nice, Minho feels like shriveling into a microscopic husk of pure, concentrated second-hand embarrassment—but whenever Chan compliments his hair or offers him a sweet, gummy smile, Minho’s hands get gross and sweaty, and his stomach starts stirring like a goddamn Amish butter churn. He’s either contracted some terrible disease from Chan, or this is how other, significantly less cool people feel around guys they like. (But not _like_ like.)

Either way, Minho finds it revolting.

“I hate how nice he is,” Minho grumbles, angrily scratching a doodle of a heart on the corner of his notebook. “I mean, would it literally kill Chan to be snarky once in a while?”

“I have very good reason to believe that it would,” comes a familiar voice, the source of it just a few inches away from Minho’s ear. “If you want, you can see my doctor’s note.”

Minho freezes. Admittedly, even he has done a few things that fall outside his acceptable range of coolness—but this, this has got to be the worst infraction yet. Even worse than his middle school JNCO jeans phase.

“‘Sup, Chan,” greets Changbin. “Don’t mind Minho. That look on his face just means his soul is slowly seeping out of his body.”

Minho snaps out of his horrified stupor to glare at Changbin. “You wanna find out what _this_ look means?” he says, rolling up the sleeves of his sweater and balling his hands into fists.

Chan laughs. Really, he laughs as easily as everyone else breathes. Minho should find it annoying. Instead, he finds it unfortunately, awfully, terribly endearing.

“I wish I could drop the fact that you guys were just talking about me,” Chan says, “but I gotta admit: it’s a little weird.”

Chan offers Minho a friendly smile in greeting as he takes the seat beside him. (But _why?_ He’s closer friends with Changbin, so why didn’t he sit next to him? Or did he just take the seat beside Minho because it was closer to the door? Oh, god, what does _any_ of it mean—)

"You're the weird one," Minho says with a scoff. "I mean, who says we were talking about you?"

For as long as Minho's had the pleasure of knowing himself, he's been cool. This all came crashing down like a motherfucking Jenga tower the day he met Chan.

Chan knits his brow together, a momentarily confused smile on his lips. "...I heard you refer to me by name?"

Minho turns to face Chan, mouth dropping open as he attempts to reply. Nothing comes out. Instead of saying, like, _anything,_ Minho's mind goes completely blank. He can practically hear the tumbleweeds bouncing around up there. It’s the goddamn wild, wild West in his brain right now and Minho might as well be the Clint Eastwood of awkwardness.

"Wow," Changbin says, fascinated. He props his chin up on his palms, staring at Minho like he’s a lab subject. "I gotta start inviting you to more of our study sessions. I don't think I've ever seen him shut up for this long."

Chan laughs again. Somehow, there's no malice to the gesture, because _of course there isn't he's a goddamn angel._ The sound is just enough to jolt Minho out of his wordlessness, warmth spreading across his face as he, y'know, regains his ability to string sounds together into coherent speech.

"Sorry," Minho says, quickly turning back to face his notebook, “spaced out for a second."

"Aw, Minho, don't tell me you got lost in my eyes just then?"

Against all better judgment, Minho flicks his gaze back to meet Chan's. He's got on his signature dimpled smile, sugary sweet without feeling too cloying—but Minho swears there's something different to the slight curl at the corner of his lips, something as sharp as whiskey and just as intoxicating.

"Easy to get lost when you don't have Google Maps," Minho says dryly. "Y'know, since it hasn't been invented yet? Because it's 2004? The year you got that pick-up line from?"

Chan's smile spreads into a toothy grin. "That was kind of a reach, but I'll give it to you."

Changbin makes some distressingly realistic retching noises from the other side of the table. "Please stop flirting with each other," he says. "I'm deathly allergic to PDA, and I can already feel my throat closing up."

Chan clicks his tongue. "Didn't I tell you to keep your Epipen around with you? You can't just put me in a room with Minho and tell me _not_ to flirt with him."

He's joking, Minho is almost certain that he is. He's hung around enough dudebro frat boys to tell when the occasional homoerotically charged comment betrays someone so deep in the closet that he coughs up coat hangers every time he speaks—and Minho is, like, 97% sure that Chan is just very friendly and secure in his sexuality.

"I don't blame him," Minho says, shrugging. "If it was possible for me to flirt with myself, I would jump at every opportunity."

"Okay, I have a question. Don't think, just answer it," says Chan, looking impossibly serious. "Would you or would you not fuck your clone?"

"Definitely," Minho replies instantly. "You?"

Chan nods. "Also yes." He pauses, then says, "Wait, are you asking whether I'd fuck _my_ clone or _your_ clone?"

Minho blinks, momentarily forgetting how to speak once again. "...Your clone."

"Okay, then the answer is still yes."

Correction: Minho is 95% sure.

"Changbin?" prompts Chan, turning to the other boy to hear his answer.

"You guys are gross and weird," answers Changbin, eyes glued to his laptop screen as he continues typing out whatever paper he's been trudging through for the last few hours.

Minho nods in solemn understanding. "He doesn't wanna fuck his clone because it would be gay."

"I don't want to fuck my clone because it's creepy," corrects Changbin, momentarily pausing his work to look Minho in the eyes. "Where did my clone even come from? Who made him? Was it me? Did I conjure him into existence just to fuck him? Or did some scientist make a clone of me so that I could fuck myself? Because that's somehow even weirder, isn't it?” He goes back to typing. "Every scenario is creepy and I refuse to enable you."

Chan sighs. "I don't even know why I secured you that gig at the haunted house. You clearly have no sense of imagination."

"Haunted house?"

Chan turns to Minho, a proud smile beaming on his face. _(Oh dear God Minho isn't making it out of this room alive—)_ "It's a charity haunted house that the Music Honor Society is putting together this Halloween," he explains. "All the proceeds go to funding the music program at a local elementary school. Changbin and I are volunteering as extras because we're just _suuuch_ charitable souls."

"I'm volunteering for it because you have an uncanny ability to get me to say yes to everything," Changbin says with a slight frown. "I swear, one moment you're asking me how my day's going, and the next thing I know, I've agreed to foster three puppies with you."

Chan grins. "Okay, but aside from the fact that they needed to pee every two minutes, wasn't that totally the best decision of your life?"

"Do you need more volunteers for the haunted house?" Minho blurts out. "Uh. Not that I'm dying to do it or whatever. But I didn't have anything planned for Halloween night, so..." He trails off, unsure of how to conclude his case.

Changbin blinks, baffled. "Minho, you just told me earlier today that you—and I quote—'plan to get so shitfaced on Halloween that my face turns into a toilet seat. Haha, get it, because I said _shit_ faced?' And then you proceeded to stare at me until I laughed."

Minho rolls his eyes. "Man, you’re totally botching the delivery." He shakes his head. "Plans change, okay? Maybe I'm feeling philanthropic."

"But you're a terrible person," Changbin says, sounding more confused by the second. "I don't think I've ever seen you take a charitable action in your life."

"Not true," Minho counters. "I'm friends with you, aren't I?"

Changbin raises an eyebrow, pointed.

"Alright, touché," Minho says. "But I still want to do this. When have I ever turned down a chance to put on an overelaborate costume and scare the shit out of people?"

"I have to admit, you are the perfect candidate to be an extra in the haunted house," interjects Chan, as positive as ever. "But... well, I'm pretty sure we already have _way_ too many volunteers. I mean, Mina’s hair is practically falling out from the stress of trying to keep everything organized."

Minho tries not to let his disappointment show—so uncool, being sincerely interested in something—but he thinks he might've failed, because Chan offers him a puppy dog pout that makes Minho feel like _Chan_ is the one who needs comforting. "I'm sorry, man. I'm sure it would've been fun to hang out together on Halloween night."

Despite Chan's best intentions, this is _definitely_ not making Minho feel any better. Still, he attempts a weak smile and rolls his eyes. "Whatever," he says. "It's not like I wanted to do it that badly in the first place."

☾

"Changbin, please please _please,"_ Minho begs, palms pressed tight together in prayer hands. "You _have_ to get me in this haunted house. I'm going to die if I don't get to do this. And when I do, I'll spend the rest of my vengeful ghost existence haunting you. I promise now that I will lick every plate with my metaphysical ghost tongue before you eat on it."

Changbin pops out one of his headphones and stares at Minho, unimpressed. "You literally said back in the library that you don't care. Then, you told me on the walk back to our room, verbatim, 'Honestly, fuck this charity haunted house. I hope those kids don't get the funding they need for their gourmet trumpets or whatever.' And then you angrily kicked at a rock. And then you were doubled over in pain for a while because your foot hurt from kicking a rock. And then—”

"Are you one of those people with highly superior autobiographical memory?" Minho interrupts, squinting. "If you are, I think we need to send you away to get tested. Immediately. And preferably in a facility as far away from me as possible. How do you feel about Tibet?”

“You’re a child,” says Changbin. Then, the slight annoyance in his expression morphs into amusement. Uh oh. “And I mean that literally. Watching you flirt with Chan today was like watching a kid pull at his crush’s pigtails on the playground.”

Minho feels his face grow hot. “I was not flirting with him?” he sputters, the statement coming out more like a question than an outright refutation. “I mean, you’d know if I was flirting with someone, because I turn it _on."_

“You might have a point there,” says Changbin. “I don’t think that your weird, homoerotic hostility could’ve been considered flirting in any categorical sense of the term.”

Minho glares at him, pressing his lips into a tight, silent line—and then, he gives in. “Okay, fine!” he cries out, throwing his hands into the air. “I like him! And I want to do freaky stuff with him, okay? I want to eat brunch with him! I want to meet his parents! And _maybe_ I want to H-O-L-D his H-A-N-D.”

Changbin blinks. _"That’s_ what you consider freaky?”

“Point is,” Minho says with huff, “you fucking caught me, alright? I like Chan. Enough to participate in this stupid haunted house thing with him.”

Minho turns on the pleading puppy dog eyes again, takes a seat next to Changbin, and tugs petulantly on his arm. “C’mon, you have to help me. The only other person I know in the Music Honor Society is Chan, and I obviously can’t ask him. Plus, I’m pretty sure everyone in that organization collectively agreed to hate me after I posted something on my Instagram story about how I don’t get Death Grips.”

Changbin is silent for a moment. Then, he sighs, loudly. “Mina’s not gonna be happy about it, you know.”

Minho tamps down the gleeful noise that gurgles in his throat. Instead, he resorts to bunching his hands into little fists and excitedly thumping them on Changbin’s arm. (Much to the chagrin of his roommate.) “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Minho says dismissively. “Aren’t you super close with her or something?”

Changbin furrows his brow. “We took Philosophy 101 together my sophomore year,” he says. “I asked her for a pencil once.”

“See?” Minho shrugs. “That’s, like, second base for straight people, isn’t it?”

Changbin pretends to swoon, fanning at his face with a hand. “You know, if you keep antagonizing me like that, I’m gonna start thinking you have a crush on me,” he says with an insufferable drawl.

“I know it’s Halloween,” Minho says dryly, “but that’s really too scary, isn’t it?”

It takes another twenty minutes of wheedling and whining (and a begrudging promise for Minho to accompany Changbin to some pretentious underground hip-hop concert in a few weekends) before Changbin finally agrees to help him again. Though, at this point, Minho is so ecstatic that he really, truly doesn’t mind the cost. He’s spending Halloween with Chan—sort of. He can’t imagine what could possibly wash the sweet taste of victory out of his mouth.

☾

“Yeah, you can’t work at the haunted house.”

Well. That sure did it.

“Oh, come on, Mina,” says Changbin. “There’s gotta be someplace you can slot him in, right?”

To his credit, Changbin is putting in way more effort than Minho originally thought he would. Then again, Minho only expected him to shoot Mina a text message and peace out, so he’s not sure how much kudos Changbin deserves.

Mina purses her lips in irritation—and, well, it’s kind of hard to take her seriously in her costume. She’s dressed as a Powerpuff girl, bleached blonde hair draped over her shoulders in pigtails, and every time she lets out an aggravated exhale, her bangs flutter up adorably. Kind of hard to believe that the fate of Minho’s Halloween night depends on a busty, sleep-deprived Bubbles.

“Look at this, Changbin,” she says, pulling at a strand of hair near her cheek. “You know what this is?”

Changbin and Minho exchange blank stares.

“It’s a gray hair, dude. My hair is _literally_ turning gray from keeping this ship running.” She taps a rapid rhythm against the clipboard with her pen, as quick and steady as a racing pulse, rat-a-tat-tat. “I’d accommodate your friend if I could, you know that—but there’s just no space for another jump scare. At least, not without it looking tacky, y’know? And I’m an artist before I’m an event organizer.”

Changbin sighs. “Well, I didn’t want to play this card, but it looks like I have no choice.” He ducks his head for a moment, shielding his eyes with his hand, then jerks his head back up with an almost theatrically mournful expression on his face. “What if, Mina, I told you that this is all for… love?”

Minho elbows Changbin sharply, throwing a pointed scowl his way. “Say one more word, and I’m throwing your Kids See Ghosts vinyl into a food processor.”

Changbin gasps, hand flying up to clutch at imaginary pearls. “You wouldn’t,” he retorts. “It’s _limited-edition."_

Mina stares at them. She looks unamused by their little skirmish, and just a little more annoyed than she had a few minutes ago. “I gotta say: when it comes to the list of valid reasons for me to screw up a carefully constructed shift schedule that I’ve spent several sleepless nights coordinating, ‘love’ is pretty much on the bottom of the list.” She makes a low humming noise in her throat, as if considering something. “I would’ve accepted ‘leaving the country for the Peace Corps tomorrow morning,’ maybe. ‘Cheering up your Halloween-loving child with a terminal illness’ would’ve also been fair.”

“You’ve been watching too many Hallmark movies, I think,” Minho says dryly.

Suddenly, Changbin snaps his fingers, his expression brightening. “Look, the problem is just that you don’t have a place to put him, right?” he says. “So, why not just double him up with another volunteer? Assign them to the same place?”

Minho can’t help but scrunch his nose in displeasure at Changbin’s suggestion. However much his Halloween plans have changed recently, he didn’t really anticipate crouching in the dark with a sweaty, costumed rando. He was going to be crouching in the dark with his _own_ sweaty, costumed self, thank you very much. Still, he doesn’t dare protest out loud, not when he can practically hear the gears turning in Mina’s head as she mulled over the proposition.

“I suppose that would work,” she says slowly. “But there’s still the problem of makeup and costuming. I don’t know if we have any for an extra volunteer.”

“Just send Minho in as is,” Changbin chirps cheerily. “Should be scary enough.”

Minho is able to land three successive punches on Changbin’s arm before Mina finally speaks up again. “Actually… I don’t think I care anymore,” she says wearily. “If it’ll get you two out of my hair, then fine. I’ll let you double up with another volunteer. Sana can figure out all the costume logistics.”

At this, Minho can’t help but grin broadly. “You’re incredible,” he gushes. “I take back anything bad I’ve ever said about Death Grips.”

Mina regards him suspiciously. “Huh. Yeah, that was you, wasn’t it? You know, I meant to respond to your story, but—”

“Anyways!” Minho interjects brightly. “What are my next steps now?”

Mina glances down at her clipboard, then starts chewing at the end of her pen. “Hm… well, you definitely need to go see Sana and get your makeup done. And I guess now’s as good a time as any to assign you to a location…”

“Can I suggest something?” Changbin’s still rubbing at the spot on his arm where Minho hit him, his wounded expression transforming into something more devious. Oh, God. Minho knows that look. It’s the same look he had on his face right before he insisted to an extremely drunk Minho that no, of course your tongue doesn’t actually stick to a frozen pole! Those are just cartoon shenanigans!

Changbin sidles over to Mina, craning his neck to read through her clipboard. “Why not put him here?” he says, jabbing his finger at an unknown spot on the clipboard.

Mina furrows her brow. “There?” she says, skeptical. “But it’s going to be really cramped with two people in it.”

Changbin nods, his expression deadly serious. “That just makes it more unexpected, right? No one’ll see it coming.”

Mina chews at her bottom lip, then sighs. “Ah, what the hell. I have better stuff to worry about right now.” She scribbles something on her clipboard before directing her gaze at Minho. “Go see Sana in 27A, and tell her you’ll be in the third floor supply closet. She’ll get you all fixed up. Probably.”

Minho’s had a stormcloud of dread hanging over his head since Changbin’s ambiguous suggestion—but before he can ask Mina for any more details, she starts tapping her pen against the surface of her clipboard again. Rat-a-tat-tat. “I’d recommend leaving before I change my mind,” she says impatiently.

 _Rat-a-tat-tat,_ goes Minho’s pulse as it speeds up inexplicably. He’s got a bad, bad feeling about this.

☾

Minho supposes there’s a baseline level of strangeness to be expected for the dressing room of a student-run haunted house. He braces himself for all the Halloween staples—you know, your requisite zombies, werewolves, and brides of Frankensteins—but no amount of B-list horror movies could’ve prepared him for the way his heart _dropped_ when he opened the door to 27A and found himself face-to-face with Bang motherfucking Chan.

Specifically, Chan dressed as a vampire—or something. Minho can’t quite tell because he still appears to be in the weeds of the makeup process, Sana carefully marking the the juncture between his neck and his shoulders with bloody red face paint, but he’s fiddling with a pair of plastic fangs in his hands as he chats away animatedly, looking impossibly cheery for his current gory get-up.

Chan stops in the middle of his anecdote—something about his top ten Bruce Springsteen albums, or whatever the fuck it is that music majors circle jerk over—and beams brightly at Minho. “Dude! What’re you doing here?”

“I think I’m supposed to be getting into my costume right now?” Minho replies, still a little taken aback by Chan’s costume, all black fabric and exposed skin and—yeah. Minho should probably stop staring at his neck before someone notices. “I don’t know, Mina told me to tell Sana that I’m gonna be—”

“Doubling up with someone, right?” Sana interjects in a sunny tone. “Yup, Mina just texted me about it. Boy, is she pissed! You should probably be extra careful when crossing the road tonight.” Like Mina, Sana is dressed as one of the Powerpuff girls. Despite the indirect threat from Mina, her voice is as sweet as the bubblegum pink of her skirt. 

Minho laughs nervously. “What can I say? My good charms don’t always work on everyone.”

Chan gasps in exaggerated disbelief. “That can’t be true.”

Minho tries to respond with an equally witty remark, he swears he does—but his eyes flicker down involuntarily to Chan’s bared neck again, lingering for a moment on the impossibly realistic bite mark that Sana is finishing up, and Minho forgets how regular conversation works once again.

Horrifically, Chan’s gaze meets Minho’s. He quickly averts his gaze and picks up a random bottle of hairspray, staring intensely at the ingredients list. Ah, yes. The pinnacle of acting. This is what his role as Villager #4 in his high school production of Beauty and the Beast prepared him for.

“Looks dope, right?” asks Chan, clearly realizing the subject of Minho’s ogling. 

Dope isn’t really the word Minho would use, but he makes a mangled noise of vague affirmation anyways.

“Sana’s seriously the best at this special effects stuff,” Chan continues. “I even scared myself a little when I looked in the mirror.”

Sana swats at Chan’s arm, feigning bashfulness. “Oh, you flatterer,” she says, even as she preens at the praise. “I can’t take all the credit; you make my job so easy. You must’ve been a vampire in another life. Er—another afterlife, I mean?” She pauses, and Minho swears he can hear the Windows startup sound as she stares off into the distance.

“Ah, whatever,” says Sana. “All I’m saying is that you make for a smokin’ hot vampire. Right, Minho?”

Minho sputters incoherently. The smile Sana shoots his way is innocuous enough—but dammit, he’s been friends with Changbin for far too long to just _assume_ that she isn’t doing this on purpose.

“...Yeah. He looks—” Unreal? Otherworldly? Like he belongs in teenage Minho’s wet dreams during his admittedly regrettable Edward Cullen obsession? “—pretty neat.”

Pretty neat. _Pretty neat._ It’s not the worst possible response, but it comes damn close.

Still, Chan laughs, as gracious as ever. “‘Pretty neat,’ huh?” he repeats, as if Minho isn’t already preparing to excuse himself to the restroom so that he can drive himself into a moderately sized ravine. “With a rave review like that, I might as well change my name to Count Chan-cula.”

Minho doesn’t mean to, he swears he doesn’t—but he lets out a loud, grossly monotone laugh, complete with a deadpan expression and all. He can’t help it: he hears a bad joke and he just _has_ to be a goddamn asshole about it. He thinks it might be a survival mechanism inherited from years of enduring Changbin’s terrible punchlines. Or maybe he’s just an asshole. The world may never know.

But of course, Chan doesn’t get offended. He just grins, looking almost endeared, and this only adds to the wriggling knot of nerves in Minho’s stomach. “I’ll get a real laugh out of you one day, Minho,” Chan says, sighing in exaggerated defeat.

Then, Sana taps his chin wordlessly, and Chan tips his face towards the ceiling, allowing her greater access to his neck as she continues painting drippy bloodstains from the corner of his lips down to his throat. Minho feels his mouth go sandpaper dry as he quickly flicks his gaze to the side and pretends like he isn’t wondering what it’d be like to feel Chan’s Adam’s apple bobbing against his lips.

“I’m sure you will,” Minho says, scratching a fidgety hand against the back of his own neck.

“All done!” Sana chirps, and Minho glances back over at the two of them. “Your turn, Minho!”

It’s not until Chan pushes himself out of his chair that Minho realizes he’s got a fucking _cape_ on. One of those party store bargain bin items, the polyester fabric looking stiff and tacky—but Minho feels like his brain is leaking out of his ears anyways, because it’s Chan, and of course he looks hot as hell wearing an eight dollar cape.

“Where did Mina assign you again?” Sana asks, snapping Minho out of a daydream that may or may not have involved aristocratic vampire Chan inviting him into his decrepit mansion on a dark and stormy night.

“Ah,” Minho says, furrowing his brow as he tries to remember what Mina had told him earlier. “Third floor supply closet, I think?”

The next few seconds pass in a blur of sorts. Minho remembers Sana’s mouth dropping open with a scandalized gasp, her hand flying to it like a cartoon character. He remembers Chan’s face lighting up in recognition, too, as he says, “Dude, you’re kidding! That’s where I’m gonna be!” Most clearly, though, he remembers making a mental note to dig around the dorm for Changbin’s favorite vinyls, so that he can run them over with his car later.

“Oh,” Minho says, as if his brain hasn’t already congealed into a gooey puddle of synapses and neurons on the linoleum floor, "cool.”

Then, Sana is steering Minho into a chair, chatting animatedly about serendipity and Mercury retrograde and other crap like that as she pops open a new palette of face paint. “I mean, what are the chances?” she continues gushing as she dips a large brush into the largest swatch of paint, the shade so white that it almost looks silver.

“Knowing my life?” says Minho, glancing over at Chan before quickly looking away again, as if momentarily blinded by a slice of moonlight. “A lot higher than you’d think, Sana.”

☾

To Minho’s slight dismay, Sana makes him up to be a zombie instead of a vampire. He’s not exactly the stuff of wet dreams right now, synthetic chunks of skin peeling off his bone-white face—but Chan compliments him on the look anyways, poking admiringly at a particularly gory pock of fake flesh on his cheek until Sana swats his hand away. (Minho can’t tell if he’s disappointed or grateful for Sana’s intervention.)

But this is the least of his current worries. Not now, when he’s staring into him and Chan’s assigned post for the night, a supply closet whose maximum room occupancy seems to total one and a half.

“Huh,” Minho says, at a loss for words, "it’s… small.”

At this, Chan knits his brow together in concern. “Oh. Does that make you uncomfortable? Because I can totally ask Mina to assign me to a different place if—”

“No!” Minho blurts out, likely a little too eagerly. “I mean… it’s small, but I really don’t mind it. Besides, I’ve had a lot of practice being in closets from high school.”

He winces a little at his own joke, but Chan just nods solemnly. “Ah. Me too,” he says.

Minho blinks. “Pardon?”

“Yeah, I used to play a lot of Seven Minutes in Heaven at parties,” says Chan. “You know? That game where you go into a closet with someone for seven minutes and, like, make out with them or whatever?”

For a moment there, Minho can practically feel himself deflate with disappointment—but then, he’s imagining Chan pressed flush against another person at one of those parties he mentioned, his skin misted with sweat and his tongue tasting of cheap beer.

“Anyways,” Minho says weakly, "let’s go in, yeah?”

Somehow, almost impossibly so, the closet feels even more cramped inside than it looks from the outside. When Chan’s shoulder brushes against his, Minho jerks reflexively, accidentally banging his elbow against a nearby shelf and knocking several rolls of toilet paper to the floor.

“Oh, Jesus. Sorry,” Minho says, a little mortified, before gathering the fallen rolls.

“S’okay,” Chan says with a small chuckle. “Oh—be careful, though.”

Minho is standing on his toes, reaching forward to return the toilet paper rolls to the highest shelf, when he wobbles a little. Chan places a gentle hand on the small of his back, which Minho’s sure is meant to steady him—but it only makes his stance more unstable, his knees melting into jelly the moment he feels Chan’s fingers pressed warm against his own skin.

Somehow, he manages to stack all the rolls back to their rightful place on the shelf, and Chan finally removes his hand from Minho’s back. (Again, Minho can’t tell if he’s more disappointed or grateful.)

“So,” Minho says when he turns to face Chan.

Chan’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles. “So...?” he echoes.

Minho quickly flicks his head to the side, staring hard at a bottle of window cleaner. “So, we should probably get ready, yeah?”

Chan laughs. Minho can’t tell if it’s at him or with him, but he doesn’t think he minds either way. “Why do you always do that?” asks Chan.

“Do… what?”

“You know,” Chan says, before tapping on Minho’s shoulder. Instinctively, Minho turns his head back to face Chan. He’s greeted with a small, curious smile. “You always look away whenever I make eye contact with you. I’m not that difficult to look at, am I?” he asks teasingly.

“Oh, God, no,” Minho blurts out. “That’s not it at all.”

Minho thinks he might be taking his zombie costume a little too seriously, because he hasn’t made a single comment since entering this closet that wasn’t completely brain-dead.

Still, Chan looks taken aback, knocked off his orbit for the first time since Minho’s met him. “Oh,” he says, his smile curling into a smirk, "what is it, then?”

Minho feels his mouth go dry and chalky. “I,” he says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I just—”

There’s a sudden series of knocks on the door, loud and arrhythmic. Minho screams and clutches Chan’s arm.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, I really hope you guys have pants on,” Momo says when she pushes the door open. She gives Chan and Minho a disinterested once-over, her eyes lingering on the fingers that Minho has curled around Chan’s bicep. Abruptly, Minho lets go, pocketing his hands as embarrassment simmers underneath his skin.

“Hi, Momo,” Chan greets with a friendly smile, as if the sexual tension in the closet hadn’t been thick enough to cut with a knife just a few seconds before. (Minho hadn’t been imagining that, right? Chan _had_ been flirting with him… right? God, someone please tell him that he’s not going delirious from whatever toxic slurry of asbestos is likely leaking through the air vent in this closet.)

Momo gives a vague hum in response. “I’m just here to say that we’re opening in fifteen minutes.”

She tugs down absentmindedly at the green skirt of her Buttercup costume, then gives the clipboard in her hands a cursory glance. “Huh. So, I guess it wasn’t a typo,” she says, almost to herself. “I’m not sure why Mina assigned two volunteers to such a small space—but, like, I also don’t really care. So, as long as you hit your cues on time and clean up any stains, I’m fine with whatever you guys do in here, yeah?”

Minho feels his face heat up at the insinuation. “We’re not—we weren’t going to—”

“We’ll behave ourselves,” Chan interjects brightly before slinging an arm around Minho’s shoulders.

Momo stares at Chan’s arm, then at Minho’s face—presumably because his ears must be the same color as Sana’s costume right now. “Mhm,” she says with a dull hum, before closing the closet door behind her.

The moment she’s gone, Minho groans and sinks down into a crouch, burying his face in his arms. He doesn’t even know _why_ he’s so embarrassed right now—he just knows that his pulse feels like a goddamn jackhammer in his ribcage and that he’s sweating so much his palms are starting to itch.

Minho’s face is still tucked stubbornly within his arms when he hears Chan say, “Hey. You cool?”

When he slowly lifts his head out of his arms, he finds himself face-to-face with Chan, who’s crouched down to meet Minho at eye level. “Honest answer?” Minho says. “I’ve never felt more uncool in my life than at this moment.”

Chan chuckles a little, though it’s not an entirely unkind laugh. Ugh. Stupid Chan and his dumb, wonderful, _stupid_ inability to be mean, even though it’d be so easy to bully Minho into an early grave right now. “Am I teasing you too much?” Chan asks, a note of genuine concern to his voice, "because I can stop.”

And Minho doesn’t even know how to respond to that, doesn’t know how to tell Chan that, no, he’s not doing anything in particular to turn Minho into a blushing, blubbering mess. Chan being his irritatingly wonderful self, Minho thinks, is really all it takes to reduce him into this state of complete and utter uncoolness—and that, in itself, is terrifying to admit aloud.

“It’s not that,” Minho says. “I just don’t deal well with discomfort.”

Chan's face creases with worry. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No,” says Minho, “but that’s the uncomfortable part.”

It takes a moment for Minho to process his own words—but when he does, his eyes blink wide, and he shoots back up into a standing position. “Uh, anyways!” he says with a nervous laugh, not daring to glance over and see Chan’s reaction. “We should probably make a game plan, right? Do you think it’d be better if—”

As he starts rambling, Minho flails his arms around in a series of fidgety gesticulations, which inevitably knocks a row of cleaning supplies off the shelf again. He winces when several containers of disinfecting wipes clatter to the floor, the sound seeming all that much louder in the cramped, airless closet. “Fuck,” he mumbles, before lowering himself into a kneel to pick up the containers. “I’m sorry. I’m such a spaz tonight.”

Minho reaches for one of the containers. Before his fingers can close around it, Chan grabs his wrist, gentle but certain.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You… seem like you have a lot on your mind,” says Chan.

There’s still a thick fog of concern to his voice—but there’s something else too, something more solid, like the serrated edge of hunger. Minho shivers involuntarily.

“Um,” Minho says, and it’s about as eloquent as everything else he’s said to Chan tonight. “Yeah. I guess I do. I’m just not that great at putting things into words, sometimes.” _Exhibit A,_ he wants to add.

“Ah,” says Chan, lips splitting like sand when he smiles, “me neither.”

Chan’s fingers are still curled around Minho’s wrist. Minho tries not to wear his heart on his sleeve, prefers to keep that telltale fist of muscle pumping away behind its ivory cage, but he wonders if Chan can feel his pulse quickening through his skin. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s felt utterly translucent around Chan. Glass bones, glass ribs, just a stone’s throw from shattering.

Then, Chan says, “Would it help if I said you don’t have to use words?”

Minho’s sure he’s imagining things, but he swears that he hears a hopeful hitch in Chan’s breath, that he sees something flush candy-pink underneath his cheeks. Just the asbestos messing with his head, probably. Yeah. That was it.

“Not great with that, either,” Minho says with a half-hearted laugh. “I’m generally just pretty bad at organizing my feelings. Most days, I prefer not to poke around up there.

Chan grins widely, all gums and teeth, flesh and bone. Unbearably raw and abruptly solid. “Fair enough.” He pushes himself off the ground, grabbing two containers of disinfectant wipes on his way up and tucking them under his armpit. Chan holds his free hand out to Minho, who is still kneeling on the ground. “You’re not exactly an open book, are you?”

Minho stares at Chan’s outstretched hand. His fingers are curled in slightly, as if he’s waiting for Minho to drop something onto his palm—a sun-warmed stone, or something just as weighty. Or maybe it’s not a request, but more of an offer, an invitation. To what, Minho can’t tell.

He grabs onto Chan’s hand and lets himself be helped up. Chan’s grip is warm, steady, undeniably real. “No, I’m not.” Minho lets his hand linger in Chan’s for a second longer than he means to before finally letting go. Because regardless of the anchor, whether it’s strong and sturdy or corroded with wind and saltwater and the inevitable passage of time, Minho always lets go eventually. “Not even to myself.”

☾

To Minho’s relief, once their shift actually starts, time passes by uneventfully (or at least as uneventfully as Minho can hope for when he’s around Chan). Sure, the entire left hemisphere of his brain stops functioning anytime Chan brushes his arm against Minho’s or laughs much too graciously at one of Minho’s dry remarks—but at least he’s stopped knocking cleaning supplies off the shelf.

They even develop a sort of routine throughout the night. Between visitors, Minho sits on an unopened cardboard box of toilet paper with huddled together knees, and Chan leans against the door, that tacky-looking cape trailing behind him like an inky shadow, a billow of twilight. Then, they talk about… well, they talk about everything, really: the big, important things, the trivial but pleasant things, and the completely, utterly, unbelievably inane things.

“No,” Minho says firmly. “Just… no. I don’t know what you’re about to say, but I refuse to enable you by letting this conversation progress any further.”

Chan half-laughs, half-groans. “Oh, c’mon! It’s Halloween, and I’m feeling festive. Indulge me, okay?”

Minho sighs. Instinctively, he reaches up to knead his temple with pinched fingers, but remembers just in time that he’s got scrupulously painted costume makeup on. So, he settles for massaging the back of his neck instead, as if even considering Chan’s request is making his muscles bunch up in a knot. (As if he isn’t so completely whipped for Chan that he’d gladly “indulge” him however he wants.)

“Alright. Fine. I’ll bite,” Minho says begrudgingly. “What _do_ you call a zombie blowjob?”

Chan’s smile practically goes radiant with rapture, and Minho has to look away for a moment, fingers curling against the nape of his neck as he starts scratching compulsively. “Giving _braaaains,"_ Chan replies, his voice going slurred and sluggish at the last word.

Minho just stares at him. “I’m going to sue you for emotional distress,” he deadpans.

Chan laughs again, and the sound swells, filling their little haven of a closet. “Damn. I was sure that one would get you,” he says, eyes creasing into twin sickles. “I _swear_ I’ll make you laugh one day.”

“Mhm,” goes Minho, “sure.”

Minho glances over at the sliver of darkness underneath the door, the action almost instinctive. This reflex puzzles him for a moment because he’s not sure what he’s looking for—but then he realizes that he’s watching for the hallway lights to flicker on and back off again, the designated cue signaling that the next group is making its way onto their floor.

Chan follows Minho’s line of sight, then says, “Ah, Minho—don’t tell me you hate talking to me so much that you just can’t wait to get back to work.”

Minho makes a sputtering noise, not unlike that of a pot of water boiling over, and Chan grins. “I’m teasing you,” he adds, his words lilting at the edges. “It _has_ been a while since the last group of people, huh?”

“You don’t think the rapture took place while we were in here, do you?” asks Minho. “I’m not sure how I feel about spending my last mortal days on Earth with you.” He’s lying. Minho knows _exactly_ how he feels about that prospect, but he’s pretty sure that he’d rather suffer a slow and excruciating death at the hands of a cranky, sleep-deprived Mina than articulate this aloud.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Chan says with a breezy wave of his hand. “I doubt that even 5% of the Music Honor Society would make it past those pearly gates. Too much premarital sex and not enough God-fearing sacrifices of firstborn children.”

“Mm. Good point.”

Chan glances down at his wristwatch. Then, his brows knit together in disbelief. “Huh. The haunted house was supposed to close twenty minutes ago.” His cheeks go pocked with dimples as he smiles up at Minho, a little sheepish. “Time flies by when you’re having fun, I guess?”

Minho feels his pulse flutter in his chest. Chan was having fun. Chan was having fun with _him._

“Guess so,” is all that Minho says, his tongue feeling thick and useless.

Even with this explanation of where everyone else went, Minho feels like the rapture might as well have taken place, because when they make their way out of the closet and back to 27A, Sana is nowhere to be found. All her makeup and supplies, too, has seemingly vanished—which proves to be a predicament when they’re in the men’s bathroom later and discover just how resilient face paint can be.

“God, where did Sana get this makeup from?” Minho says with a huff, angrily scrubbing a damp paper towel against his cheek until his skin starts to burn. “Ace Hardware?”

“Well,” Chan says, pausing his own ministrations to watch Minho with amusement, “it _is_ the place with the helpful hardware folks.”

When Minho pulls the towel away from his face, he finds that most of the face paint has only smeared, and he throws his hands up in the air with a groan. “I don’t even know how you can act so calm right now,” he says mournfully. “We’re going to spend the rest of our lives as Halloween monsters. God, I’m gonna have to update my Tinder profile, aren’t I?”

Chan chuckles. “Aw, c’mon—‘monster’ is harsh. I think you make for a cute zombie.” He reaches a hand out to pinch Minho’s cheek, smudging silver-white face paint onto his thumb and forefinger. “I’d swipe right.”

Minho blinks rapidly, his vision going staticky with stars. He isn’t sure what makes him do it—maybe it’s the way Chan’s skin had felt against his own, like a flame licking against brimstone, or maybe spending a night hunched in a closet together has renewed his confidence, or maybe it really is just those motherfucking asbestos—but Minho blurts out, “I have makeup wipes in my room. Um, if you want, we can—I can lend you some. From my room. Because that’s where I keep my makeup wipes. In my room.”

Chan furrows his brow, feigning confusion. “Sorry, what do you have in your room again?”

Minho swats Chan’s arm, lips twitching into a reluctant smile when Chan pretends to keel over in pain. “I take back my offer,” he says. “I hope you live the rest of your life as a Party City vampire. I want your future grandchildren to point at photos of you and reminisce wistfully about dear old Vamps, everyone’s favorite vampire grandpa.”

Chan pouts petulantly. “That’s harsh, dude,” he says. “Though, I guess I’m flattered that you think my grandchildren would remember me so fondly.”

Minho scoffs. “Of course they would,” he says. “You’d be the type of grandparent to constantly give them candy. And not lame caramel hard candies, but, like, cool future candy. Probably the occasional recreational drug, too. Also, you wouldn’t be able to walk into their houses without being invited in first, so they’d never have to worry about unexpected visits.”

Chan laughs. “Maybe I should just keep this makeup on. Vampire me sounds _extremely_ cool. And also very respectful of personal boundaries.”

Over the course of their conversation, Minho has balled the coarse paper towel into a dense ball, a concentrated lump of nerves. He starts picking at it now, tearing the paper off in bits and leaving little crumbs beside the sink. “I mean, if that’s what you want, then sure. Chase your bliss, or whatever.” Minho casts his disinterested gaze to the side, like he’s spotted something mildly more engaging than Chan over his shoulder. Like his eyes aren’t magnetically drawn to Chan, like they haven’t been for the whole night now. “But if you don’t want to hook up exclusively with monsterfuckers for the rest of your life, then we can go back to my place. Er, for the makeup wipes, I mean.”

When Minho glances back at Chan, he’s staring at Minho with that curious smile again—only now, there’s a streak of satisfaction to it, as if Minho is something to be deciphered, and he’s finally cracked him. Though, if Minho had a say in any of this, he’d argue that Chan already had him figured out _long_ ago.

“Sure,” says Chan, flashing Minho a mouthful of worn down fangs when he grins, “for the makeup wipes.”

☾

Here’s how the walk back to Minho’s dorm goes:

About 5% of his brain power is spent trying to shamble together a coherent conversation with Chan. This, he thinks, is clear from all the robotic “mhm”s and “oh really?”s that he peppers throughout their walk. Another 5% is spent praying to whatever cruel, capricious deities out there that Changbin is out making terrible life decisions at some Halloween party right now, and not chilling in their room. The last 90% revolves around a virtual gumbo of panicked thoughts, of _well does it matter if Changbin’s there it’s not like Chan is coming to your room with the express intent of dicking you down you pervert,_ and then _oh my God Chan is gonna be in my room oh my God oh my_ God _we’re totally gonna fuck aren’t we,_ and also _wait when was the last time I washed my sheets oh no oh no oh no._

By the time Minho settles on an answer of three weeks ago, he’s _pretty_ sure he washed his sheets three weeks ago, they’re standing in his room, and Chan is staring at him with a quizzical smile.

“Um,” Minho says when he realizes that he hasn’t spoken since they walked into his room, “I guess I’ll go and get the makeup wipes.” He gestures vaguely over his shoulder. “Just give me a second. I think I left them in the bathroom?”

Chan blinks, smile freezing in place. “Oh. When you said we were going back to your room for makeup wipes, you actually meant…” Minho swears that he watches Chan’s ears bleed into several splotchy shades of red in real time. “Um. Nevermind. Ignore me.”

“Wait, no, hold on,” Minho says in a breathless rush. At this point, his mind is practically running on autopilot, pure instinct taking over for his sense of shame. “Did you think that I invited you over to… uh, hook up?”

Chan’s blush is visible even underneath his face paint now, something like the tint of a stained glass window, and Minho feels a strange twinge of pride. He’s so used to being the flustered one around Chan that… well, it’s sort of nice to see the tables turned, that’s all.

“I mean,” Chan says, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck, “maybe? I kind of assumed ‘makeup wipes’ was a euphemism, or something. Which was a little presumptive of me, in retrospect.” He shakes his head. “Okay, wow, I’m—yeah, that’s really embarrassing. I’m gonna leave now before I—”

“Don’t,” Minho blurts out before grabbing Chan’s wrist. “I mean… do leave if you want to. I won’t stop you. But, uh, if it changes anything, I don’t want you to. Leave, that is.”

Chan looks stunned, knocked off kilter, when he says, “What?”

And maybe Minho is just as surprised when he replies, “I want you to stay,” because he thinks it may be the first time he’s admitted this aloud. To Chan, to anyone.

“Oh,” Chan says, the word sounding like an exhale.

Minho blinks. There’s a strange lightness in his chest, though maybe it’s less an abundance of weightlessness and more an absence of heaviness. Really, he just can’t tell if he’s underwhelmed by Chan’s reaction, or so, so relieved. “Oh?” he repeats, unimpressed.

“It’s—It’s not a bad ‘oh,’” Chan adds quickly, syllables slurring together in his rush to get them out. “I just… I guess I didn’t think you liked me that way?”

And at this, the lightness in Minho’s chest swells in his ribcage and bubbles up his esophagus, leaving his lips in a loud, uncontrollable belly laugh. He actually crumples forward from the effort, and he’s forced into a kneel because his stomach hurts too much to stay standing.

“Um.” Chan mirrors Minho’s kneeling position, then holds a hesitant hand out before resting it on Minho’s shoulder. “You… cool?”

If Minho’s head wasn’t already reeling from the hypoxia of laughing so hard, he thinks the deja vu of this whole situation would send him spinning, too. Luckily, if this night has taught him anything, it’s how to build a bit of a tolerance for the absurd.

“No,” Minho replies, “but I don’t think I care that much anymore.”

Chan’s eyes crinkle at the corners, and he scrunches his nose. “I don’t understand.”

Minho shakes his head. “Nevermind.” He cards his hand through Chan’s hair, then lets his thumb fall to the burning shell of his ear. “You’re kind of an idiot, you know. There were days when I thought my crush on you was visible from space.”

Chan’s ear, soft and flexible and fragile as a bird’s bones, grows even hotter between Minho’s fingers. “Well,” he says, “maybe it was. But it’s easy to miss the ocean when you’re swimming right in it.” Minho is about to ask him what the fuck he means by that when a self-satisfied grin spreads across Chan’s face. “And I told you.”

“...You told me?”

“I told you I’d make you laugh for real one day,” says Chan chuckling softly to himself.

Minho scoffs and says, “You caught me slippin’. Won’t happen again.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. Minho still doesn’t completely get it, the whole ocean thing—but maybe he understands a little better now, because he’s never felt more like drowning in another person’s presence.

Then, Chan says, “What now?”

Minho hums in consideration. “Hm,” he says before sliding his hand down from Chan’s ear to the warm crook of his neck. “Do you still wanna borrow my makeup wipes?”

Chan presses his lips together, looking genuinely conflicted by the question. “Wait. Do you mean makeup wipes, or do you mean—” He holds a hand up and scrunches two fingers in air quotations. “ _—makeup wipes?”_

Minho resists the urge to roll his eyes. (He must not resist very hard, though, because Chan still lets out a petulant whine of protest.) He cradles the back of Chan’s neck with his free hand, letting his fingers curl into the scruff of overgrown hair like a flower turning towards the sun. He leans forward so that their foreheads are almost touching and says, “What do you think?”

Chan swallows thickly, and Minho watches with delight as his Adam’s apple bobs like a buoy in water. “I think,” he says, “that I would feel kind of weird having my first kiss with you while I’m dressed like a Halloween monster.”

Minho sucks his teeth, making a dismissive _tch_ sound. “Oh, don’t feel insecure about that. You know I like you for your brains.”

Chan blinks rapidly. He lets out a sharp exhale of laughter and says, “Did you just make a zombie pun? And a really terrible one at that?”

“...Say a word of this to Changbin, and I’m telling Mina we fucked in the closet.”

Chan sputters incredulously, and Minho grins. “Now, can you please kiss me?” says Minho.

Maybe it’s a little uncool to outright ask your crush for a kiss right after making an astronomically bad zombie pun. It’s probably also pretty uncool to do it while you’re both kneeling on a dusty, crumb-covered floor, surrounded by silver Pop Tarts wrappers and long-forgotten writing utensils. It’s definitely uncool when Minho accidentally clicks his teeth against Chan’s in his nervousness, and the little snort of a giggle he lets out in response might be the least cool thing he’s ever done in his entire life.

But he’s got Chan’s forehead pressed warm against his own, and Chan’s arm hooked around his neck like an anchor—and maybe, just maybe, there’s a little more to life than being cool.

☾

(“Hey, Minho—Chan told me you almost wrecked a whole supply closet on Halloween. Ha, what’s with that? It’s puberty, isn’t it? What, were you going through growing pains? I can set you up an appointment with my old pediatrician if—uh. What’re you doing with my MF DOOM vinyls? And where did you get that blender from? Minho, _NO—”)_

☾

**Author's Note:**

> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/malbokdiet) | [my curiouscat](https://curiouscat.qa/malbokdiet)


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